Halliburton Oil Company: The Power of Multinational Enterprise - Essay Example

Using their business and shareholder resources, these firms exercise power by compelling individuals, nations, and governments, their own and that of nations where they operate, to comply with their interests. What they proposed continue to hold true to this day. Micklethwait and Wooldridge (2000), Stiglitz (2002), and Sachs (2005) recount examples of multinational enterprise intervention in the banking, oil exploration, retail, construction, and automotive industries in lobbying governments, their own and foreign, to adopt or reject policies not in the enterprise's best interests.

This is nothing new. For thousands of years, the intertwined interests of governments and business enterprises have been a known fact, even in the ancient world where monarchs and kings led armies to conquer nations to build pyramids and gain access to resources. However, from the time of Imperial Greece and Rome to the monarchs of 18th and 19th century Europe, it was government that invested in businesses and financed explorations and wars of conquest. The rulers' centralised possession of power gave them the wealth and ability to coerce other nations (Sobel 29-40).

Britain was the last European superpower as an event took place in one of her colonies across the Atlantic when, in 1776, America declared her independence. This occurred as Britain was warming up to her full business potential with the Industrial Revolution. Although it would not be until some two centuries later that she became the next and incumbent superpower, the roots of America's present status as a world power dominated by business interests was sown by the men who were behind the declaration of independence.

As will be discussed next, America was the first nation in history founded by, and for, businessmen.Origins of America: Evolution of PowerAmerica is currently seen as a liberal, pluralist, democratic, and capitalistic society where business interests exercise power in, through, and by the government. After its discovery late in the 15th century by Spanish explorers, America was an insignificant outpost of Spanish and French colonies as these two nations battled each other for supremacy in Europe.

It was not until the late 16th and early 17th centuries - when Britain's monarchs and businessmen with mercantilist intentions sent adventurers - did colonisation begin with the first settlement at Jamestown in 1607. From 1620 onwards, America welcomed a mixed group of pilgrims persecuted by Britain's absolutist monarchy or escaping from Europe's economic crisis. The settlers shared a common goal: